County Manager Tony Brown said this afternoon, upon release of the letter, “We hope the two boards will see fit to work together to make this happen as quickly as possible to the meet school needs.”
The statement released by the school system Tuesday said the commissioners' decision to hold the cost of a new school at $19.2 million is of concern to parents and is simply not enough.
(The letter in its original format and style is included as a PDF attachment at the end of this story)
The school district says the amount commissioners have agreed to fund would only allow it to build a school for 550 students when Manning's current student population is 650.
In the letter, Bryant writes, “The Halifax County Commissioners welcome dialogue from any of the three school districts at any time. Over the last several months, the commissioners have spent considerable time reviewing the costs of a new Manning elementary school and studying what is affordable to Halifax County's taxpayers.”
Bryant explains presently, the only regular source of outside financial assistance available to the county is the state Public School Building Capital Fund. “The money in this fund comes from the education lottery, and so it is often referred to as the lottery fund.”
When the education lottery was created, Bryant wrote, 40 percent of these lottery funds were allocated to the PSBCF to help counties meet the capital costs of building and maintaining public school buildings.
“Unfortunately,” he wrote, “This allocation has dwindled from 40 percent to about 17 percent. Although these lottery funds are earmarked to local school units, the lottery funds do not belong to the school districts.”
The specific statute, Bryant wrote, states the fund “shall be used to assist county governments in meeting their public school building capital needs for the local school units within the county.”
Bryant surmises, “So, the statement that Roanoke Rapids school leaders have agreed to take a portion of their lottery funds to help with the new Manning school project is a bit misleading. Lottery funds are actually county funds that are available to be used to meet public school building capital needs upon joint application of the board of commissioners and the board of education to the Department of Public Instruction.”
Building schools is an expensive endeavor for taxpayers, Bryant wrote.
The initial cost presented by the architect was more than $26 million, and that was trimmed to about $23 million, which now is trimmed to $20.6 million based on the most recent information.
He wrote ust to pay for the current $19.2 million plan of financing $18 million — $ 1.2 million is already available — the annual debt payments would be between $900,000 — for 40 years — up to $1.6 million — for 15 years.
These debt ranges would equate to a Halifax County tax increase of 2.81 cents up to 5.4 cents. To finance $20 million, the Halifax County tax increase would fall between 3.12 cents up to 6 cents.
The projections, the chairman wrote, are based on the current best and worst interest rates available. “Based on these figures, a review of other schools, a review of our county budget and our ability to make the debt service, the board established the figure of $19.2 million as a workable amount.”
That figure was established after a committee composed of Bryant and Roanoke Rapids Graded School District Board of Education Chairman Jay Carlisle, RRGSD Superintendent Dennis Sawyer, Brown, Commissioner Carolyn Johnson and RRGSD Board members Michael Williams and Michael Salanik — via telephone — along with additional staff from RRGSD and the county met to discuss the needs and what could be affordable.
“The consensus was to recommend $19.2 million for the project subject to approval by both boards,” Bryant wrote. “The Bboard of commissioners does appreciate the spirit of cooperation shown by the Roanoke Rapids Graded School District in agreeing with the county to jointly commit $200,000 in lottery funds towards the upfront costs and $200,000 in lottery funds per year towards the debt service.”
Wrote Bryant: “We all want to ensure we provide our children the best opportunity to gain a good education and have a safe environment in which to learn. We, the commissioners, are very committed to providing that environment in the most economical and feasible way as to not unduly burden all our taxpayers. We can build a $30 million school or a $10 million school and there are some that even suggest we renovate the present school for $11 million.
“There are no correct and absolute answers, however, we need to work together to solve and move forward with this project. The commissioners have committed to $19.2 million and are ready to fast-track this project starting today. Spending time debating the cost will further delay the project. Let's move forward with what we have so we can quickly get our Manning students in a suitable environment.”
In the letter Bryant compares the situation to buying a new car when the buyer doesn't have the money saved for the purchase. “So you go to your banker and ask him, 'How much can I
borrow to purchase a new car?' The banker looks at your records and tells you, 'You can borrow
$15,000'. You leave and go to your dealer and start looking at cars.
“Do you go looking at cars selling for $20,000 to $30,000 or do you go trying to find the best
one to fit your needs in the $14,000 to $15,000 range?”
Wrote Bryant: “The Halifax County Commissioners have figured out that we can work with the $19.2 million figure without unduly burdening the Halifax County taxpayers and that is what we plan to do.”
